Design // Business // Marketing -- An insider's view of the game industry. (www.GameMatters.com)

Monday, February 09, 2004

Name matters

In general, a product name is one of the most important aspects of a brand. In effect, a name is a brand's banner, or headline, and it needs to quickly convey a compelling, meaningful message about the product itself -- the Die Hard Battery is one of the all-time best names in this regard. And given the high importance of product names, it's somewhat surprising that they are so often botched, blundered and bankrupt. Especially in the game industry. A bad name can weigh a game down like a two-ton anchor, or it can act like a booster rocket that helps propels the brand to stardom. There's a lot of psychology at play with product names, and it's smart to use every trick in the book to help your game reach its full potential. A name is most often your potential customer's first contact with your game, and forms that always critical first impression.

Since the early 90's, my partner, George Broussard, and I have researched the qualities that help make for a successful game name. Over time we've created a list of guidelines:

o Short names are better than long names. All other things being equal, if you can come up with a great short name for your game, do it. Doom, Diablo, Quake, Zelda, Halo, Mafia, The Sims, Fable, etc. The problem with longer names is that they are too often reduced to a short-hand version, or reduced to initials (GTA:VC and FFX for example). Both of these work against the brand building process. Names begin to get to unwieldy when they're longer than two or three words -- this should be avoided if at all possible, and in most cases it is possible. (BTW, the full name for Halo is Halo: Combat Evolved, but generally players haven't used the meaningless "Combat Evolved" portion, so the de facto name, and the one the marketing people should have stuck with, is just "Halo." Very short and simple. In this case, even the marketing people couldn't ruin a good name, as players have fixed their error.)

o Avoid punctuation in the game title. If your title has a colon, a dash, periods (Contract J.A.C.K.), or other punctuation, you're just asking for trouble. One of my favorite out-of-control game titles is Descent: Freespace 2 - The Great War. A more recent bad title is True Crime: Streets of LA. Why not just "True Crime"? What does "Streets of LA" add that will increase sales? Absolutely nothing of value. The addition of that colon and the subtitle just screws up a good short name. The same marketing person would have likely named Id's famous shooter something along the lines of, Doom: Hell Breaks Loose on Mars. In short, stay away from punctuation, and the cumbersome titles that usually results from this mistake.

o Avoid sequel numbers. This is the one I expect to hear the most controversy over. People who name their games just love to use sequel numbers, possibly thinking that their customer base is too stupid to figure out if the game is, in fact, a sequel. The problem is that sequel numbers, like Final Fantasy 2 through 10, make each succeeding game look more and more ridiculous, and more and more like a rehash rather than an original experience. Even though, let's say, Half-Life 2 doesn't sound that bad, when does it cross the line into clear absurdity? Half-Life 5? Half-Life 10? Why even start if you know at some point you'll cross that line?

With the Duke Nukem games, we mistakenly named the second one Duke Nukem 2, released in 1993 before we knew any better, but since then we've not used a sequel number, at least not a blatant one. Sure, the next game was Duke Nukem 3D, but that's a slightly more clever way of using "3" in the games title. The coming Duke Nukem Forever follows this same half-stealth tactic, as "Forever" implies the fourth episode.

And that's the key for us: we look at each succeeding game as a new episode, not a sequel. The episode model is the one we see used by television networks and comic books. Take Star Trek, for example: Is each new episode named something like "Star Trek 31: City on the Edge of Forever"? Nope. What about movies? Many movie series wisely avoid sequel numbers, such as the Alien series (except Alien 3), the Indiana Jones series, the Batman series, and the best example of all, the James Bond series. How completely and utterly silly would it be to have those 007 movies named, "James Bond 22: Die Another Day"?! Luckily, this series never got off on the wrong foot by using sequel numbers. It's really only been in Hollywood's recent history that they've fallen into the dark pit of using sequel numbers with exuberant glee. For example, all of those early Frankenstein and Dracula sequels avoided them, and same with the perfectly named Planet of the Ape series, and Bob Hope's many Road to Wherever movies. Does anyone ever have trouble knowing what the name of the current Bond film is? Of course not. Sequel numbers are not only unnecessary, they cheapen the brand in the long term. Get smart, stop using them.

Two more examples of out-of-control names: Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings, Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.

Oh, and before people ask me, the original name for the Max Payne sequel was going to be simply, The Fall of Max Payne. But, after we sold the brand to Rockstar, they decided to change the name to Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. A silly mistake, IMO. But hey, they paid us the big bucks to name the game whatever they thought worked best. But, I see this akin to changing the well named "The Mummy Returns" to the unnecessarily burdened "The Mummy 2: The Mummy Returns." See how titles can so quickly go from cool to crap!

o Have a meaningful title. Avoid titles that have practically no meaning, like Zone of the Enders, Allegiance, Far Cry, Syphon Filter and XIII. As one developer friend recently remarked, "I thought a 'syphon filter' might be something used to change a car's oil." Sure, these titles might mean something to players of the game, but they mean nothing to potential buyers, and those are the people you should care about most -- assuming you care about your game being a success.

This is one of the reasons I think Doom is a great name, while Quake is merely average. Yes, they're both short, which is good, but Doom communicates the frightful, nightmarish nature of the game, while Quake is quite meaningless as a name. Even after playing all of the Quake games, I'm still not sure what connection this name has to the games.

o Avoid generic titles. Examples include: Universal Combat, Brute Force, Dungeon Siege, and Eternal Darkness. In short, these names are banal and forgettable. They do practically no work in selling the game within the box. Their generic quality makes them more difficult to standout from the pack, and more difficult to remember. These names also show a lack of creativity. With permission from developer friend Rich Carlson, I'm including his recently updated list of generic words, all of which should be avoided if at all possible. He breaks them down into three categories of avoidance (and quite honestly, I'd group them ALL under the "Felony" heading, as I have no mercy for generic game titles):

Just this morning I happened to read about a coming game from Activision, Tenchu: Return from Darkness. Hmmm, about as generic as a subtitle can get. BTW, check out Rich's Feb. 4th blog entry, "Steel Dawn: Forgotten Rebirth II Gold Edition," for another take on generic words.

Bottom-line, do not use these words! To do so positions your game as ordinary right from the start. And is that what you want for your pride and joy? I didn't think so.

o Beware of names that leave you open for easy criticism. In the February 2004 issue of PC Gamer, I saw this headline for a review of Ubisoft's FPS, XIII: "It's called XIII because there are XII better shooters." You have to laugh! And even though you cannot protect against this sort of wordplay attack in all cases, it's still something to consider when you're formulating a game name. For example, I wouldn't use a game title like The Bad and the Beastly, as I can just see people twisting those words against you if they don't like your game.

And there you have it. Remember, none of these are hardened, immutable rules. However, I try to use all of them in my favor for each and every game, because in today's competitive environment, every little thing you do right only helps.

Comments

Some recent terrible names:

Beyond Good & Evil (could there possibly be a less appropriate title for this game?) and the twin titles from the already-terribly-named-Planet Moon Studios: Armed & Dangerous and Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

The consensus game of the year: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic violate your first, second, and fifth principle. All sports titles like Madden are sequels. And as for sequel numbers, it did not seem to hurt Nintendo with its Mario Bros. titles. It's not the name that counts, it's the gameplay.

I think technically the latest Jedi Knight game should have been named
"Star Wars:Dark Forces 4: Jedi Knight 3: Jedi Academy" or something ridiculous like that, I'm kind of glad they dropped the Dark Forces through Jedi Knight.(although I kinda liked it - but it IS generic)

Brian, to be certain, a bad name will not sink a good game. Though, a bad name, like Deus Ex, can chop away a not insignificant percentage of sales. A better name for that game could have garnered it a lot more interest.

Deus Ex violates another guideline I forgot to mention in my article: Make sure people can pronounce your game name. Anachronox is another bad name, in this respect.

The Star Wars names are a bit like James Bond, in that they establish the brand upfront. "James Bond: Die Another Day" serves to establish that this is a Bond film, in the same way that "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" brands the game as a Star Wars game. In both cases, the name is effectively shortened to "Die Another Day" and "Knights of the Old Republic", which although long have a certain poetic quality to them that I think can work when used well.

"The Star Wars names are a bit like James Bond, in that they establish the brand upfront."

I agree with this statement, and it's these circumstances where a long name is acceptable. For example, I think "True Crime: Streets of LA" is going for the same thing. You can bet Activision is hard at work now on Streets of Chicago, Streets of Paris, Streets of Yokohama, etc. True Crime is the brand, and "Streets of XXX", is the title. It's kinda like EA Sports: Madden NFL 2004.

-- "Scott, didn't you mention once that 3 syllable names are ideal for short names? Why wasn't that mentioned in your first principle?"

Jeff, that refers to character names, which has its own set guidelines.

-- "Duke Nuke 'em Forever is without a doubt the most misused name evar!"

True, but this isn't an inherent problem with the name, just a side-effect of us taking so damn long to finish the game! We could have avoided the misuse of the name by having released it several years ago.

-- "Beyond Good & Evil"

Truly one of the all-time most generic names. It's also absolutely meaningless. The marketing buffoon whom thought of this name (or let the game go out with this name) should be fired. Generic names imply generic games, and I'm positive that this lousy name has cut deeply into the sales potential of this game. Is it any wonder that it so quickly went into the bargain bin, even with the mostly positive reviews it got.

Never underestimate the self-destructive potential of a terrible name.

As for the James Bond movies, none of them are named anything other than their unique names. However, it doesn't surprise me that the game industry, still several notches lower in marketing intelligence than our Hollywood friends, can't quite figure out that "James Bond" and "Star Wars" are unnecessary clutter that confuse the issue more than they make it clear.

Even the first three Star Wars movies had 100% unique names. It wasn't until the remakes that George Lucas stated calling them "Star Wars: Episode 4 -- A New Hope," or some such craziness. Still, most people rise above this horrible naming convention and still use the unique names alone.

I'd like to agree, and I'm an idealist. But as video games become more accepted they slowly become like music and movies. And you can't convince me that music only sells because it's good, sorry. As Scott said (at least I think it was you, right?), he views himself as someone in the 'entertainment business'? That's probably the right business approach to take, even if I am someone who wants to make 'art'.

>Scott Miller
>Even the first three Star Wars movies had 100% unique names. It wasn't until the remakes that George Lucas stated calling them "Star Wars: Episode 4 -- A New Hope," or some such craziness.
>Still, most people rise above this horrible naming convention and still use the unique names alone.

Yeah, he did officially change them after he decided to make a 'brand' out of it. And while I've no business knowledge, as a consumer, I can see the sense behind it to a point. But in video games as the millions for pushing the products aren't always there, sometimes the only way to get 'brands' across are either sequential numbers or a branding title.

Or am I missing something and you're saying that it's simply lazy and/or misplaced advertising that these flags are relied upon?

Beyond Good and Evil. A great game, but a terrible, terrible name. Needless to say, it has nothing to do with the book Beyond Good and Evil. It's not entirely clear what the name is supposed to refer to (and I've played the game). The name certainly doesn't suggest any of the good points of the game (it's a adventure platformer that blend humor with a moderately dark if derivative storyline). The name actually suggests something pretentious that I've avoid.

I think mentioning a games brand in the title is a good thing provided that you have established your brand and it is proven to provide quality. Sounds obvious enough. But that is were True Crime falls apart. It doesn't have a brand yet, so saying that it's Streets of LA is trivial. Now you might be saying it establishes a setting. Why should the title establish setting? The biggest thing a title can do for you is to get someone to pick up the box. I don't think the title will sell your game, but it should interest the player enough that they will pick up the box. I doubt adding "Streets of LA" got many extra people to pick up the box. However, adding Star Wars to anything will get someone to pick it up.

Scott, I'd agree with about Deus Ex only to the extent that it wasn't a good name for that particular game. Specifically because there is sex in the title, albeit with a space inbetween. Sex will always catch peoples eyes. If there lead character had have been an attractive female that game probably would have sold unbelievably well.

Yeah, I have to admit, I have no idea why BG&E was called BG&E, if not for some tie to Nietzsche's book. Best connection I can come up with is from the book's first line: "Suppose truth is a woman...."

With regards to BG&E, it specifically relates to the plot in the latter half of the game. Not that it makes it a better title, but it's not as bad as others and at least it does apply to the game.

I think you make some good points Scott, but you contradicted yourself by saying that the titles ought to be simple but make sense. The Sims makes about as much sense to someone who's never played The Sims as Syphon Filter does. Halo could very well have been limited to Photoshop Phriday mockups on Something Awful of Hello Kitty in a combat suit. I mean what the hell is either Mario or Zelda when you take away the cultural foreknowledge of the characters? Mario sounds like a pizza game, and Zelda sounds like a Scandinavian sim-prog rock band game.

REZ and Ico had about as simple names as you can get, and that didn't do them much good. Typing of the Dead is about as interesting a name as you can get, but do *you* own a copy? Anachronox failed financially because it came out four years too late, not because it had a crappy title that no one was smart enough to understand (myself included, until I played the game).

My point is that while titles might have something to do with it, I think you're overextending their impact. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic isn't much better than the horrendous Jedi Outcast 2, and as your theory predicts, it's been shortened to Kow-thar (phonetically). But the game still sold. You're linguistically right as far as cultural dialect goes, but I'm not sure I would necessarily apply that same theory apply to sales.

I'm with Brian here.What matters much, much, much more is how great your game is plus some other mystical magical quality that ICO and REZ didn't have. But I doubt it had anything to do with their titles.

I think my personal nominations for the worst titles in recent history is Xenosaga Chapter One: Der Wille Zur Macht and its upcoming sequel Xenosaga Chapter Two: (Beyond Good and Evil). (I noted BG&E in parentheses because I've forgotten the actual title, which is "Beyond Good & Evil" in German.)

Not everybody speaks German, and even those who do, I don't know what giant robots in space have to do with The Will of God or being Beyond Good and Evil. It just kind of makes me roll my eyes.

I think you're overestimating the importance of the title. If your game is good, and you market it properly, I don't think it matters all that much.

I think it's important to include a number in the title only if it's a direct continuation of the story, so it's easy to establish the chronology. I can list most of the Bond movies, but not in order.

Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams should've been Silent Hill: Restless Dreams because it's important to let the consumer know that it's a Silent Hill game, but no 2 because it has nothing to do with the original. Silent Hill 3 should've been Silent Hill 2.

Duke Nukem Forever is not a good name, IMO, because it seems to have a connotation of finality (and also because there is a slight connection with Batman Forever).

I'm going to have to agree. Names are important, but there are plenty of titles that have terrible names but are amazing games. Ico isn't a great name, but it's argueably one of the best games this generation.

I would see the name as being the marketing equivilant of a "foot in the door" it makes it easier for the brand to spread, and be remembered, however a catchy name, will not save a bad game, but it will catch you some suckers
At the same time, a bad name with a good game, will probably end up losing you an audience you could have gotten if they just could remember the name of that awesome game they heard about.

I allso think a name should immidiately let you picture a piece of the game you are getting yourself into. unfortunately when it comes to names... I dont remember them very well regardless :) I'm more of a faces person... things that immidiately come to mind as good names though are games like Magic Carpet, and Jagged Alliance (although the latter might just be an association with the great gameplay) personally I think this is an important issue, my programmer friend now however believes it's a critical issue and wont stop bugging me about coming up with names for his new game :) (thanks scott, he reads this site too)

as for Duke Forever... I'll remember the name much more fondly once I play it probably, so get back to work guys, you've got a great deal to prove

on a side note... I've been having E-mail trouble, any word if you got my mail Scott?

I'd add that sometimes generic names can be good, if you are belting out a game that wants to be a budget game for example, you want something that screams out what genre you are in, and you don't care too much about sequels. Just don't call your sci-fi shooter 'Sword of the Dragon', or your medieval RPG 'Alien Invasion'. :)

Hmm I think that if one was to put a disclaimer at the start of every article 'This topic I am going to write about will have an affect on the sales of a game, but it is not the sole ingredient that will make a game sell', it would prolly cut down on a few posts. :)

Agreed on that, Factory. (Not that I actually think Scott should do that, of course. That's just something the readers here should internalize.)

I think Scott's advice is basically sound. There's no getting around the fact that any number of other factors can make or break a game's success, regardless of name. The point here is, as a developer, you're not likely to know how all those other factors are likely to play out, and given that we do know that some games suffer very badly from a lame name despite genuine merits, it would simply be stupid not to spend the five minutes to an hour it would take to come up with a decent string of words that potentially millions are going to identify and refer to your product by.

(Incidentally, I can't express how lame the title "Broken Sword" is, even if there's a relatively competent series of graphic adventure named that.)

-- "The Sims makes about as much sense to someone who's never played The Sims as Syphon Filter does...My point is that while titles might have something to do with it, I think you're overextending their impact."

I've noted several times that these are guidelines, not hard line rules. It's very hard to have a name that follows all of these guidelines. In some cases you sacrifice some rules, perhaps length or obvious meaning, to excel with the other guidelines. Mario originally had no meaning to players, but it's a short, unique, non-generic name, and that's good enough in most cases -- especially back when the brand was first created when competition was much weaker.

-- "Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams should've been Silent Hill: Restless Dreams because it's important to let the consumer know that it's a Silent Hill game, but no 2 because it has nothing to do with the original. Silent Hill 3 should've been Silent Hill 2."

Mark, again I say, why is it that there are numerous successful movie series' that do not need sequel numbers? What makes the game industry different?

-- "There's no getting around the fact that any number of other factors can make or break a game's success, regardless of name."

Exactly, a name is one part of the overall puzzle. It can hurt or help a game, but it can't make or break a game.

"Exactly, a name is one part of the overall puzzle. It can hurt or help a game, but it can't make or break a game."

I can swallow that. Some things, however, are just unavoidable. You mentioned DNF (there I go shortening it). I also recall, though, that the combination of Max *Payne* as a title and that overused constipated screenshot did cause you guys some, um, _pain_ in some of the magazines.

I agree on some points, but disagree on others. Artistically it is better to drop the numbering, but for sales (which is what the article is about), I think it is much better to brand it with an already popular name. Look at the Final Fantasy series. Its about as generic a title as you can get, the sequel numbers are now up to 12, nevermind all of the other "not true sequels" like the Gameboy games and the Final Fantasy Tactics series. The games aren't even related other than by basic gameplay. With the exception of FFX2, none of the games have the same characters or even take place in the same universe, so why should they be connected by a name? The reason is sales. If they named the Final Fantasy games with unique, undistinguishing names, each one would be fighting on its own merits to get sold. As it stands now, millions of people will pick up the next Final Fantasy game unquestioningly. Square's other similar games still sell fairly well, but nothing like Final Fantasy.

And a side note about numbering. If Max Payne 2 had just been called "The Fall of Max Payne", I guarantee you that everyone would have just been calling it Max Payne 2 anyways. The often mentioned Jedi Knight series finally dropped the numbering for the latest game, Jedi Academy, yet everyone I know still abbreviates it JK3 (and technically its even Dark Forces 4).

The only way I could see sequence numbers being useful in a title is if the order in which you play the games matters. In the case of the Bond movies, it doesn't matter, so why bother. In Final Fantasy, it also doesn't matter except to differentiate that it's not Final Fantasy One, since the series doesn't have subtitles. I can understand adding a brand name to the title because it will establish a game world. What does adding a sequence number add? It doesn't establish a brand, you've already done that. I think it can actually discourage a buyer from buying a game because it can make people believe they have to play all the other games that came before it to understand what's going on.

As I hear so often from people who have not played the Final Fantasy series, "If this really is the Final Fantasy, why is this the 12th one?".

One comment about the James Bond Movies. It's a minor nit, I admit, but still. The Eon folks (the people who make the 007 movies) do refer to them as Bond 20 (aka Die Another Day), or Bond 21 (the one currently in pre-production). They're just not refered to as that when they're released.

Also, Star Trek got away from that after Movie #6. Generations, First Contact, Isurrection, & Nemesis (whatever you think of the quality) didn't have 7, 8, 9, & 10 in the titles. It was just "Star Trek: First Contact", or "Star Trek Nemesis". Some had the colon, some didn't.

Resident Evil is different though because it has a continuous story. You don't need to play them all to get the gist of the game but to get the story properly, you need to play them in order.

My point is Code Veronica X is a better name then Resident Evil 4. But in order to associate it to the Resident Evil series it needs the brand in there. I guess you have to think of it like you see it on the Knights of the Old Republic box. Star Wars is in tiny letters above KOTOR.

I think I worded my last post a little stronger then I meant it. All I meant was, I agree with Scott, in general, sequel numbers are bad mojo.

Nine Inch Nails had the right idea. Each album they released was not a sequel of the album before it, but they tacked on a "Halo" number. This inspired collectors to buy all of the Halos, and allowed for a sense of completeness when they had them all. Some collectors would have missed out some of the more obscure NIN albums, but they could not afford a gap in the Halos.

The same thing could be done for a company's products. It's not a sequel, but you know you have to get it if you want to complete the set.

The only reason why it may be good not to number sequels is because it might lead potential customers to think they have to buy the previous titles in the series. However, unlike movies or books games suffer from technology time-drag. Earlier games may have been released on different and incompatible formats which may no longer be in production or wide-spread use. And from modern games the look and feel of older titles may be too poor in comparision.

I mostly agree with the sequel numbers statements, but with a not-so-minor exception: I think that xxxx2 and possibly xxxx3 are actually pretty good names.

Take just about any of the mega hits in our industry (quake, doom, diablo, c&c, etc.) and you will find that the second one is xxxx2.

I think this is a good thing as it says that this product is not the first in a series, which very often may be great but also very often have flaws, etc. in them. Even for an experienced team, the first product in a new line very often tends to be a little rough around the edges (unless you are a very experienced/ organized team and not taking such a huge leap from all the products your team has done in the past).

I also think that the buying public rarely hears about a first run good game, sure eventually they do and they are primed in the pump when they hear xxxx2 is coming, they are ready to buy on day one. You don't have to relaunch your title or explain to people, yeah that's the sequel to the award winning xxxx that you know and love or heard all the kids talking about. Supposed Halo2 is named Kill all Martians (not a good name) or whatever, every article, interview, discussion board would say first thing: this is the sequel to Halo (or blatantly Halo2). Why try and explain that to the consumer who is not on the halo forum boards, doesn't got to EB once a week, and doesn't read 1 or more EGMs or CGMs each month? Hand the public the information on a platter, don't make them think, don't make them investigate, don't make them guess.

Now, after xxxx2, or possibly xxxx3 I do believe it becomes unnecessary and the price of having a number as your title is outweighed by having a catchy title. I think Final Fantasy has captured all of the people they are going to catch under the name FF. The brand recognition is about as saturated as it's going to get. You can have "A Final Fantasy Adventure" as a subtitle and just call you game something nice.

Anywho, y'all get the point I'm making and this post is long enough...

An interesting counterpoint to the discussion about True Crime is how Activision (the same publisher) is handling its new "Call of Duty" franchise.

The first game is simply "Call of Duty," and subsequent ones will append other theaters, like maybe "Call of Duty: Vietnam." It's basically what EA did with Medal of Honor.

But to do it on the first game, as it's done with True Crime, makes no sense. "True Crime" would have been sufficient, though I guess they wanted to get some L.A. cachet? Or they were trying to emulate Grand Theft Auto: Vice City?

The comments about XIII are somewhat irrelevant, because that game is based on a French comic book of the same name.

Well, sooner i try to put a comment here and both my PC's memory have died on me!!! So, i think i am scared to do it now. LOL!

Seriously, i do agree about the numbers. Was even more confusing with FF regarding their japanese version releases, versus the american when the NES existed. And to proove that fact just look at the Star Trek movies...

I disagree about Duke Nukem Forever. That name is stabbing you in the back because of your constant pushing back of the release date. Eventually it would be wise to change that title, for something that do not make reference to a time frame, even forever or never is a timely name. It's not different then to say "This Morning with Duke Nukem", or "Eternally Duke Nukem" or "Duke Nukem Now" or "Duke Nukem when it's done". I don't know if you understand what i mean...but in my opinion that name should be changed soon, so that it doesn't slashback when you release it. That name could even attract more bad critics because of the circonstances...

o If the game sucks, it'll be panned as it should be and all the jokes about the name will be out in full force.

o If the game is great, all will be forgiven and forgotten, and we'll likely see the "forever" part of the name used in the game's favor.

Basically, all games face the same fork in the road regardless of the circumstances of their development. Had Max Payne been a bad game, then the headlines would have sure read, "A max pain to play!"

-- "The first game is simply "Call of Duty," and subsequent ones will append other theaters, like maybe "Call of Duty: Vietnam."

Steve, I've got no problem with this naming method. It has weaknesses, IMO, but it gets the job done. I'd prefer to name the game "Vietnam" or "The Vietnam Campaign," and have a Call of Duty logo on the box above the name. This way Call of Duty isn't part of the game's name, but it's obvious to players that the game is part of the Call of Duty series. In the same way, all James Bond movies use the 007 logo.

Our last Duke Nukem game was named "Manhattan Project," but above the title was the familiar yellow Duke Nukem title logo.

...and there I wanted to call my next game "Alien Quest 2: Darkness Extreme"

Kidding aside, some of those "bad words" can actually be good if used alone -- "Doom" and "Alien" being great examples. A game simply called "Evil" or "Vendetta" could be quite striking imho and do tell something about the game. Imagine a game box with the single word "Evil" on top -- I'd just have to pick it up to see what it is about. "Evil Watch", "Sicilian Vendetta" or other multiple words titles would completely water down the effect however.

Scott - "Had Max Payne been a bad game, then the headlines would have sure read, "A max pain to play!""

Yes, but there are limited ways of using Max Payne in a positive manner, whereas the title opens up a whole world of potential punnery for negative comments, mostly revolving around the word "payneful".

Max Payne is also a good example of another potential pitfall of title choice - 3D Realms, Remedy and Take 2 got landed with a lawsuit from a retired wrestler with the stage name "Maxx Payne", whose "character" happened to be .. a hardboiled New Yorker from Hell's Kitchen. Even if it was just an unfortunate coincidence, it's worth checking these things beforehand. A simple Google search would have turned up mentions of him on wrestling sites.

Gestalt, we *did* check. The Max Payne trademark was available and unchallenged when we applied for it (when we applied is when this guy should has raised a concern, not six years later!). Keep in mind, there are about 100 people in the US that actual have this as their legit name, which is one reason we liked it. Just because someone used this name in the wrestling market doesn't preclude us from using it in the game industry (the trademarks are in unique catagories, plus he didn't trademark his name so there was no way for us to even know about him). The characters are entirely different, and not a single preview of review of our game -- 100's of them -- mentioned this wrestler. (A point that really, really, really hurts this guy's case that we capitalized on his image!) The bottom-line is that it doesn't matter if there's a wrestler who used this name, as the game industry is a non-competitve category. (It'd be a different story if he had a wrestling game named after him, like Tony Hawk has.)

This wrestler has zero grounds for a case, and will eventually lose in court. Sure, it'll cost us about $100,000, but that's the price we happily pay for success. We've been involved with no less than a dozen frivolous law suits, and we've yet to lose one. And we *never* settle, we always go for the outright win. People like this should never be rewarded when they are so clearly just trying to get a quick settlement hoping we'll pay them a bundle just to go away.

Every successful company must deal with these sorts of things. Success comes with a price: Losers looking for a quick score.

Recent reads

The One Percent DoctrineSuperb book on the policies that lead us to the current Iraq war. Two words: Blame Cheney! (Well, and Bush too, but he's not the linchpin.) (*****)

Brands & GamingMostly inconsequential book that doesn't really explain HOW to make a successful game brand. Instead, it focuses on marketing for game brands. (***)

Cleopatra's Nose: Essays on the UnexpectedTruly wonderful book, mostly dealing with history, by one of my all-time favorite writers. The final chapters, written in 1995, give a clear reason why America should not be in Iraq, if you read the underlying message. (*****)

Myth & the MoviesGreat study of a wide range of hit movies, using The Hero's Journey as a measuring stick. Very useful for game developers. (****)

Kitchen ConfidentialThis chef is clearly in love with his writing, but the fact that he's a non-innovative, hack chef makes this book less insightful than I was hoping. Still, a fun read. (***)

See No EvilI do not list 2-star or lower books here, and this book almost didn't make the cut. A somewhat unexciting behind-the-scenes look at the life of a CIA field agent working against terrorism. The book's title is spot on. (***)

The DiscoverersLove books like this, that offer deep insights into the growth of science throughout history, and giving a foundation of context that makes it all the more incredible that certain people were able to rise above their time. (*****)

Disney WarI started reading this and simply could not stop. A brilliant behind-the-scenes account of the mistakes even renowned CEOs make, and the steps they'll take to control their empire, even against the good of shareholders. (*****)

Marketing WarfareA revised re-release of one of the all-time best marketing books. Only bother reading this is you care about running a successful company. (*****)

YOU: The Owner's ManualAnother good overview of way to protect your health in the long run. It's all about prevention, rather than hoping medicine can fix us when we're broken (i.e. heart disease or cancer). (****)

The Universe in a Single AtomPerfectly subtitled, "The Convergence of Science and Spirituality." Buddhism meets relativity, and believe it or not, there's a lot of common ground. (****)

See Spot Live LongerFeeding your dog at least 65% protein? Most likely not, as all dry dog foods (and most canned, too) absolutely suck and have less than 30% protein. And that is seriously hurting your dog's health in the long run. (****)